By Christopher Shaban
Eagle Times Correspondent
SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT — Stowe grabbed their fourth straight state championship in Division 3 soccer downing Windsor, 5-0, with a flurry of second half goals. That flurry ended Windsor’s historic season on a beautiful turf fiend at South Burlington High school on Friday, Nov. 3.
The scoring duo of Audrey Rupp and Olivia MacLeay were well known to the defending champions as both were shadowed with plenty of defenders all during the match.
“We knew they could score,” said Stowe Head Coach Tyler Post. “They have a couple of 50 goal-scorers and we made sure they worked hard on every touch.”
Sophia Dufour and Kenzie Wescott had room to flash their speed, but Stowe had some tracksters of their own who closed space very well along the wings.
The Raiders couldn’t shake Windsor in the first half as Rupp made a solid run on net only to have Raider keeper, Tanner Gragory, race off her line to crash into Rupp and smother the loose ball. On the other end, Sophia Rockwood was under a constant barrage of shots with Stowe sharpshooter Sarah Hailey showing off her tremendous speed. Meanwhile, Miah McAllister and Gabby Crane rotated their coverage on the lethal goal scorer.
The Jacks Kemari Wildgoose and Bri Barton matched up well against the centerfield play of a tactically solid Stowe group that spread the field from sideline to sideline with short, controlled passing. Hailey would find the back of the net with 90 seconds left in the half to give the Raiders a 1-0 lead into the break.
“That goal was huge. If you work hard, you get rewarded,” said Hailey.
Stowe needed that confidence boost.
“We were very lucky. I felt like we stole that goal, and it gave us a big boost mentally after Windsor had shut us down,” said Post.
“We are in this. We are battling so well,” said Jack co-coach Wendy Moody during the half. “We just need to keep up our intensity.”
Stowe adjusted their formation and set an additional attacker into the mix as Rockwood was under heavy pressure when Hailey drifted in from the left edge of the goal box. She found the lower corner to put Stowe up 2-0 less than 2 minutes into the second half. The Windsor defense scrambled to mark the wave of Raiders looking to increase their lead as wings Jaylin Lyman and Cassie Clark were overwhelmed with multiple runners in their areas. Izzy Lovell would increase the lead to 3-0 with an absolute rocket as Stowe was feeling it.
The scoring ability of Rupp and MacLeay led to a historic season for Windsor as this team was only the second Jacks girls team to reach the finals in school history. The pair was marked hard all over the field with double teams rushing to them whenever they touched the ball.
“They are such a scoring powerhouse, if we could contain them, we had a good chance to getting a win and we did just what we have done all season; play hard and keep with our fundamentals,” said Lucy Andrus.
Ortiz and Hailey would add to Stowe’s 5-0 final score as the Jacks have their sights set on next season.
“This is not how we wanted it to end, and we will be losing two incredible seniors as Olivia and Miah will be graduating, but we learned so much this year and this game is within our reach next year,” said Moody. “We will be back.”
Stowe Senior Sarah Hailey finished the day with 3 goals and an assist, giving her 9 goals during the playoffs. Stowe would finish their season with a 12-5-1 record after an 0-4 start as all 10 seniors on the team were on the field for the final whistle to begin the championship celebration.
“We took on a very tough schedule to prepare us for a game like this. That monster schedule made us better,” said Post. “I tip my hat to Windsor. They will be back next year.”
Windsor would finish with a 14-2-1 record.
“We gave it our all. I’m going to miss this so much,” said MacLeay.
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